I hate how liberals can create a meaningless label like whataboutism and then repeat it endlessly until it becomes an argument for them. Most of these labels were created because they are too lazy or ignorant to counter argument. Their debate capabilities rival that of a child.
Pretty much, liberals never engage an argument in good faith. Their goal is always to shut down discussion whenever they see a point of view that’s not sanctioned by the CIA. It’s rather amusing how the same people who bemoan lack of freedom of speech in evil authoritarian regimes like China are actively censoring any dissenting opinions that run contrary to the state propaganda of their own regime. Zero self awareness there.
There are some paranoid levels of thinking in some of that stuff. Like when a person thinks someone is a “x foreign country spy” because they disagree. It’s possible for people to break out of that mode of thinking, but when they are in that mode, it’s next to impossible to get through because everything you say that is in disagreement is “because you are trying to deceive them.”
Liberals claiming someone is doing whataboutism seems like a component of this thinking, with a belief that the one doing the “whataboutism” is attempting to deceive. But although it’s (probably? I haven’t analyzed it in enough depth to say with certainty) possible for someone to deceive in that way, it’s also possible to compare two things for a variety of rhetorical purposes that have nothing to do with dishonesty. Such as pointing out the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world if someone tries to say x foreign country is “authoritarian” in contrast to the US being “free”; that’s not whataboutism, it’s a factual point that undermines the narrative of the US having some kind of greater moral standing from which it can properly judge other countries.
If anything, I would say imperialists, liberals, tend to be more engaged in actual whataboutism, even if unconsciously. Like if you try to point out something fundamentally wrong with the US, claiming that alternatives are way worse. Which in that regard also seems to be in bed with doomerism (or more formally maybe, capitalist realism).
Oh yeah I’ve noticed that as well, it’s absolutely inconceivable for these people that somebody could genuinely disagree with them. If you have a contrary opinion that must be because you have some secret agenda. It’s kind of funny to unpack to be honest because what are they even saying there. When they say you’re shilling for the see see pee or whatever, they’re still acknowledging that you ultimately prefer that system. Yet, according to them, your view should be dismissed because anything that’s not western liberalism is somehow evil.
The whole whataboutism thing is fundamentally a logical fallacy. It’s basically a rhetorical device to create a double moral standard for yourself and your adversaries. Why should others be held to a higher standard than one holds themselves, it doesn’t make any sense.
I think when they say people “shill for the ccp” what they mean is “you accept payment from this evil bad country in order to lie for them.”
It’s a moral statement. It both dismisses the argument from the “ccp shill” while also reinforcing the idea that the west alone cares about morality at all. It is such a common argument because it doesn’t just allow someone to ignore their opponent, but also soothes them, insisting that they are on the “right side of history” and the only people who disagree with them are cartoonishly evil, doing things they know are wrong just for the money.
Absolutely, it’s the highest stage of cope where they insist that nobody could possibly genuinely believe what you’re saying, so you’re just reading a script because you’re paid to do so.
I think it goes back to things we’ve talked about before, with libs insisting that those “other countries” are worse in every way. Their worldview involves following a script, so tankies must really follow a script, extra, extra hard.
(Also, damn you are popular today, you keep getting a ton of likes on everything. I’ll hit refresh and a comment will go from 5 or so to over 20.)
I think it’s because the programming cuts off the ability to see that the programming isn’t actual education nor does it encourage thought, but quite the opposite. So if someone disagrees it’s because they have different programming and that is the only explanation. It’s all brainless knee-jerk reaction.
Oh yeah I agree, it comes down to thermodynamics in the end. We all hold a graph of ideas in our heads, and no single fact exists in a vacuum. So, when we’re presented with a new idea that doesn’t fit with the existing graph, we either have to rebuild the whole graph of concepts that are associated with it, or just discard the conflicting idea. Unless there’s a good reason to spend the energy doing the hard task the brain goes with the easy solution of just ignoring the information that doesn’t fit what we already believe.
This is why change tends to only happen when material conditions start collapsing, because that’s the point where it’s too costly for people to continue ignoring alternate ideas. They’re forced to recognize that their world model is divergent from their actual experience, and need recalibrating.
That’s a logical fallacy not a meaningless label. Do you know what a straw man argument is? Whataboutism is like that, it’s a debate tactic people use in arguments. It’s called a fallacy because it doesn’t actually settle arguments but instead uses poor logic to make it appear that the person using it is winning.
To use one of the rights favorite whatabouts.
Trump is a traitor. Saying well what about Hunter Biden doesn’t make Trump less of a traitor, but instead tries to derail the argument and make it about Hunter Biden.
A correct example would be to say that Both Trump and Hunter Biden should be held to the same standard. What people point out when liberals screech whataboutism is that the west holds itself to a different standard than its adversaries. The same way a legal system has to apply law in a consistent fashion, countries must be held to the same standard as well. If people in western countries are outraged by other countries doing the same thing the west does, then they should fix their own countries first before pointing fingers at others. It’s really that simple.
Exposing hypocrisy is not a logical fallacy. A person that engages in debate in good faith will not use hypocritical statements, at least not intentionally. Hypocrisy must always be pointed out to construct a serious and scientific understanding of reality.
There’s a difference between exposing hypocrisy and trying to change the subject to derail a conversation.
Trump can be a traitor and Hunter Biden a coke head, both of these things can be true. Bringing up Hunter’s coke problem every fucking time Trump’s crimes get mentioned is whataboutism.
It is a form of intellectual dishonesty, like a strawman. i.e. a logical fallacy.
Trump can be a traitor and Hunter Biden a coke head, both of these things can be true. Bringing up Hunter’s coke problem every fucking time Trump’s crimes get mentioned is whataboutism.
I understand that this is just an example you made to explain the concept, but the things people here say that are called whattaboutisms rarely fit your description. Most often, you’ll have someone bring up involvement of a western country (usually burgerland) in causing a problem that is being pinned on the designated bad country of the week. This isn’t an attempt to derail the conversation: this is an attempt to get to the root of the issue.
And relying on calling out fallacies to shut down a point is just the fallacist’s fallacy in the flesh; so do any of you ever have an actual point to make? Or are you just another bad-faith hypocrite? Because that sounds a lot like “every time we make up an atrocity only to get called out for an actual atrocity we committed, we’re gonna shriek ‘whataboutism’”; and that’s all the intellectual honesty of a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
not agreeing with a person is not necessarily a logical fallacy. It could be a difference in assessment of what info is factual. In order to assess a contradiction in logic, one must first verify that there is no contradiction in facts.
There’s a point your making, but even you fail to understand it. A proper logic fallacy would be to apply a moral approach to a topic where it is originally supposed to realist/technical approach. An example of this would be the discussion of the ukraine war, by stating that ukraine cannot and will never win is a realist approach to a major geopolitical situation, and the continuing the war is only to the detriment of ukranian, and russian lives to a war which had been decided since day 1. The true ‘whataboutism’ is when liberals apply a moral aspect and deviate the conversation by stating “ukraine experiences (uninformative and unbacked knowledge) genocide by the russians” or “ukraine is fighting for their life wouldn’t you do the same?” That’s whataboutism, as its shifting the tone of the conversation from an actual depiction of ukraine, to the enlightened image ukraine has of fighting barbaric invaders who want to destroy their culture (P.S. again bullshit since russia only wants the russian-speaking areas which have been trying to secede only for the ukranian army to continue to discriminate and maim them). There’s no logic backing them here, every analysis, every professional paper, and every person with a thinking brain can properly decipher that ukraine can never win, even the liberals who know this try to deviate from the conservation into a moral issue, for them its to successfully gear the conversation into good vs evil one, so that they can deny the logic but still resemble a well-reasoned argument. That’s logic fallacy.
I appreciated the well thought out response but your still painting the same tired picture. My sides right and yours wrong. Look at how you talk about the true whatabotism being a thing liberals do instead of it being a logical mistake all humans can make.
Both sides do it. When liberals bring it up it’s because they’re tired of Fox Entertainment distracting from very real crimes Trump committed. If Hunter is a criminal, lock him up too.
Anyway, you all keep enjoying your projections and circle jerks. I’m out for real this time because you’re the first honest response I have had and frankly the rest of you are to caught in your own echo chamber to hear anything but GOP propaganda.
Days late to this but the point I was making a point from our perspective, that’s why I talked about the russian-ukraine war. And frankly a lot of people (including me) is really tired of liberals using ‘whataboutism’ or ‘logic fallacy’ to incorrectly shut down a conversation. I agree communists can incorrectly post information regarding certain topics, however thats far from even a minority. But liberals do base their entire personality, and ideology on denying logic.
The other point why people bring hunter biden is that he’s clearly done stuff that a poor, or minority person would be locked up for decades. Yet he escapes crime simply because he’s born into a wealthy family, and is a president’s son. He’s literally a fortunate son. People seem to forgotten there’s evidence of him snorting cocaine, and having sex with prostitutes, all illegal under US law, and people have died from these laws, which biden has voted in, and put into place. We’re also tired of democrats support and funding fascists, and then turning around to us, the majority, to bail out their mistake, they literally count on our better judgement, and morals to bail out their shitty, money-grabbing ones. This is not how a democracy works.
Shame, at least do think about this information for a while, and reflect on why we think this way. Or you can ignore, either way.
I think the term whatsboutism got coined because of how Fox Entertainment uses it. Mention Trump and then say something like well what about Hunter. It’s a way to distract and spread propaganda.
Liberals do it too.
I don’t identify as liberal or conservative. I grew up working class and support strong unions. Which neither the GOP or Democrats do. They’re both the party of the rich, as you eluded to in your post.
One wants total power and the other wants to keep the status quo with the corporate elite. I want to seize the means of production and hold all of these assholes accountable.
I hate how liberals can create a meaningless label like whataboutism and then repeat it endlessly until it becomes an argument for them. Most of these labels were created because they are too lazy or ignorant to counter argument. Their debate capabilities rival that of a child.
Pretty much, liberals never engage an argument in good faith. Their goal is always to shut down discussion whenever they see a point of view that’s not sanctioned by the CIA. It’s rather amusing how the same people who bemoan lack of freedom of speech in evil authoritarian regimes like China are actively censoring any dissenting opinions that run contrary to the state propaganda of their own regime. Zero self awareness there.
“I know you are, but what am I?”
There are some paranoid levels of thinking in some of that stuff. Like when a person thinks someone is a “x foreign country spy” because they disagree. It’s possible for people to break out of that mode of thinking, but when they are in that mode, it’s next to impossible to get through because everything you say that is in disagreement is “because you are trying to deceive them.”
Liberals claiming someone is doing whataboutism seems like a component of this thinking, with a belief that the one doing the “whataboutism” is attempting to deceive. But although it’s (probably? I haven’t analyzed it in enough depth to say with certainty) possible for someone to deceive in that way, it’s also possible to compare two things for a variety of rhetorical purposes that have nothing to do with dishonesty. Such as pointing out the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world if someone tries to say x foreign country is “authoritarian” in contrast to the US being “free”; that’s not whataboutism, it’s a factual point that undermines the narrative of the US having some kind of greater moral standing from which it can properly judge other countries.
If anything, I would say imperialists, liberals, tend to be more engaged in actual whataboutism, even if unconsciously. Like if you try to point out something fundamentally wrong with the US, claiming that alternatives are way worse. Which in that regard also seems to be in bed with doomerism (or more formally maybe, capitalist realism).
Oh yeah I’ve noticed that as well, it’s absolutely inconceivable for these people that somebody could genuinely disagree with them. If you have a contrary opinion that must be because you have some secret agenda. It’s kind of funny to unpack to be honest because what are they even saying there. When they say you’re shilling for the see see pee or whatever, they’re still acknowledging that you ultimately prefer that system. Yet, according to them, your view should be dismissed because anything that’s not western liberalism is somehow evil.
The whole whataboutism thing is fundamentally a logical fallacy. It’s basically a rhetorical device to create a double moral standard for yourself and your adversaries. Why should others be held to a higher standard than one holds themselves, it doesn’t make any sense.
I think when they say people “shill for the ccp” what they mean is “you accept payment from this evil bad country in order to lie for them.”
It’s a moral statement. It both dismisses the argument from the “ccp shill” while also reinforcing the idea that the west alone cares about morality at all. It is such a common argument because it doesn’t just allow someone to ignore their opponent, but also soothes them, insisting that they are on the “right side of history” and the only people who disagree with them are cartoonishly evil, doing things they know are wrong just for the money.
Absolutely, it’s the highest stage of cope where they insist that nobody could possibly genuinely believe what you’re saying, so you’re just reading a script because you’re paid to do so.
I think it goes back to things we’ve talked about before, with libs insisting that those “other countries” are worse in every way. Their worldview involves following a script, so tankies must really follow a script, extra, extra hard.
(Also, damn you are popular today, you keep getting a ton of likes on everything. I’ll hit refresh and a comment will go from 5 or so to over 20.)
Completely agree, and yeah dunno what’s with so many upvotes today. Don’t think I’ve said anything profound. :)
I think it’s because the programming cuts off the ability to see that the programming isn’t actual education nor does it encourage thought, but quite the opposite. So if someone disagrees it’s because they have different programming and that is the only explanation. It’s all brainless knee-jerk reaction.
Oh yeah I agree, it comes down to thermodynamics in the end. We all hold a graph of ideas in our heads, and no single fact exists in a vacuum. So, when we’re presented with a new idea that doesn’t fit with the existing graph, we either have to rebuild the whole graph of concepts that are associated with it, or just discard the conflicting idea. Unless there’s a good reason to spend the energy doing the hard task the brain goes with the easy solution of just ignoring the information that doesn’t fit what we already believe.
This is why change tends to only happen when material conditions start collapsing, because that’s the point where it’s too costly for people to continue ignoring alternate ideas. They’re forced to recognize that their world model is divergent from their actual experience, and need recalibrating.
That’s a logical fallacy not a meaningless label. Do you know what a straw man argument is? Whataboutism is like that, it’s a debate tactic people use in arguments. It’s called a fallacy because it doesn’t actually settle arguments but instead uses poor logic to make it appear that the person using it is winning.
To use one of the rights favorite whatabouts.
Trump is a traitor. Saying well what about Hunter Biden doesn’t make Trump less of a traitor, but instead tries to derail the argument and make it about Hunter Biden.
Whataboutism
A correct example would be to say that Both Trump and Hunter Biden should be held to the same standard. What people point out when liberals screech whataboutism is that the west holds itself to a different standard than its adversaries. The same way a legal system has to apply law in a consistent fashion, countries must be held to the same standard as well. If people in western countries are outraged by other countries doing the same thing the west does, then they should fix their own countries first before pointing fingers at others. It’s really that simple.
Exposing hypocrisy is not a logical fallacy. A person that engages in debate in good faith will not use hypocritical statements, at least not intentionally. Hypocrisy must always be pointed out to construct a serious and scientific understanding of reality.
There’s a difference between exposing hypocrisy and trying to change the subject to derail a conversation.
Trump can be a traitor and Hunter Biden a coke head, both of these things can be true. Bringing up Hunter’s coke problem every fucking time Trump’s crimes get mentioned is whataboutism.
It is a form of intellectual dishonesty, like a strawman. i.e. a logical fallacy.
I understand that this is just an example you made to explain the concept, but the things people here say that are called whattaboutisms rarely fit your description. Most often, you’ll have someone bring up involvement of a western country (usually burgerland) in causing a problem that is being pinned on the designated bad country of the week. This isn’t an attempt to derail the conversation: this is an attempt to get to the root of the issue.
And relying on calling out fallacies to shut down a point is just the fallacist’s fallacy in the flesh; so do any of you ever have an actual point to make? Or are you just another bad-faith hypocrite? Because that sounds a lot like “every time we make up an atrocity only to get called out for an actual atrocity we committed, we’re gonna shriek ‘whataboutism’”; and that’s all the intellectual honesty of a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
If the point someone is making is a fallacy then they are not addressing the original point and dodging an honest debate.
And holy shit the amount of projection in this thread!
care to elaborate?
We don’t agree with this person, which is clearly a logical fallacy, they just haven’t figured out which one yet.
not agreeing with a person is not necessarily a logical fallacy. It could be a difference in assessment of what info is factual. In order to assess a contradiction in logic, one must first verify that there is no contradiction in facts.
nah, was clear after I posted I wandered into a right wing echo chamber so I will bow out and let you all keep circle jerking over my downvotes.
May your jimmies remain unrustled, never having to contemplate your assumptions.
There’s a point your making, but even you fail to understand it. A proper logic fallacy would be to apply a moral approach to a topic where it is originally supposed to realist/technical approach. An example of this would be the discussion of the ukraine war, by stating that ukraine cannot and will never win is a realist approach to a major geopolitical situation, and the continuing the war is only to the detriment of ukranian, and russian lives to a war which had been decided since day 1. The true ‘whataboutism’ is when liberals apply a moral aspect and deviate the conversation by stating “ukraine experiences (uninformative and unbacked knowledge) genocide by the russians” or “ukraine is fighting for their life wouldn’t you do the same?” That’s whataboutism, as its shifting the tone of the conversation from an actual depiction of ukraine, to the enlightened image ukraine has of fighting barbaric invaders who want to destroy their culture (P.S. again bullshit since russia only wants the russian-speaking areas which have been trying to secede only for the ukranian army to continue to discriminate and maim them). There’s no logic backing them here, every analysis, every professional paper, and every person with a thinking brain can properly decipher that ukraine can never win, even the liberals who know this try to deviate from the conservation into a moral issue, for them its to successfully gear the conversation into good vs evil one, so that they can deny the logic but still resemble a well-reasoned argument. That’s logic fallacy.
I appreciated the well thought out response but your still painting the same tired picture. My sides right and yours wrong. Look at how you talk about the true whatabotism being a thing liberals do instead of it being a logical mistake all humans can make.
Both sides do it. When liberals bring it up it’s because they’re tired of Fox Entertainment distracting from very real crimes Trump committed. If Hunter is a criminal, lock him up too.
Anyway, you all keep enjoying your projections and circle jerks. I’m out for real this time because you’re the first honest response I have had and frankly the rest of you are to caught in your own echo chamber to hear anything but GOP propaganda.
Days late to this but the point I was making a point from our perspective, that’s why I talked about the russian-ukraine war. And frankly a lot of people (including me) is really tired of liberals using ‘whataboutism’ or ‘logic fallacy’ to incorrectly shut down a conversation. I agree communists can incorrectly post information regarding certain topics, however thats far from even a minority. But liberals do base their entire personality, and ideology on denying logic.
The other point why people bring hunter biden is that he’s clearly done stuff that a poor, or minority person would be locked up for decades. Yet he escapes crime simply because he’s born into a wealthy family, and is a president’s son. He’s literally a fortunate son. People seem to forgotten there’s evidence of him snorting cocaine, and having sex with prostitutes, all illegal under US law, and people have died from these laws, which biden has voted in, and put into place. We’re also tired of democrats support and funding fascists, and then turning around to us, the majority, to bail out their mistake, they literally count on our better judgement, and morals to bail out their shitty, money-grabbing ones. This is not how a democracy works.
Shame, at least do think about this information for a while, and reflect on why we think this way. Or you can ignore, either way.
I hear you.
I think the term whatsboutism got coined because of how Fox Entertainment uses it. Mention Trump and then say something like well what about Hunter. It’s a way to distract and spread propaganda.
Liberals do it too.
I don’t identify as liberal or conservative. I grew up working class and support strong unions. Which neither the GOP or Democrats do. They’re both the party of the rich, as you eluded to in your post.
One wants total power and the other wants to keep the status quo with the corporate elite. I want to seize the means of production and hold all of these assholes accountable.
Musk and Bezos, Trump and Hunter too.
You aren’t understanding. By attacking a US rival you are promoting the US and helping them